by Joshua Khan
He’d been in Gehenna long enough to know the dangers of robbing the dead.
On he went.
Yet there was some activity, of sorts, within Necropolis. The fountains gurgled. The aqueducts that crisscrossed the city still brought water down from some reservoir up in the mountains. It wouldn’t take much to make this place habitable. There was water; there was shelter. Yet nothing grew here. Life shunned it.
Except the phoenixes.
They flew directly overhead, filling the shadowy streets with their fiery light. It seemed very wrong that they, creatures filled with brilliance, would nest here, in so lonely a place.
He watched as a pair of them spiraled around each other, one blazing with orange and gold, the other blue and white, their flames entwining as they headed toward a lone tower. They blew flames over its roof until it glowed; then they settled down.
So that’s their nest.
Thorn scanned ahead. It seemed clear, so off he went. Down this street, across that square, along the edge of a park, the fiery tower always in sight.
How far was it? It looked so close! Was this more wild magic? Maybe the city wasn’t measured by normal means. He glanced back, hoping he’d be able to find his way back to Hades. It was getting darker, and the others were waiting for him.
He reached the phoenix tower and looked up and up and up and up.
The summit of the tower glowed like a volcano. Thorn felt the heat even down here. Then he caught sight of something shiny among the debris on the ground.
It was a curved piece of gold.
Now that’ll come in handy.
Thorn reached for it, then yelled as he touched the metal.
It was burning hot!
He sucked his fingers until they stopped pulsing.
Gold was gold, and this piece obviously didn’t belong to anybody. He wasn’t going to leave it.
Smaller pieces lay around, all each equally hot to the touch. Thorn undid his turban and wrapped up a few. The cloth smoked. He stole one final glance at the tower, then ran, cradling the treasure against his chest.
They’d lost the phoenix cage, but Thorn had something better.
A plan.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“What do you think?” Thorn unraveled his find dramatically. The gold pieces clattered on the ground, hissing when they touched the cooler stone.
Lily, Pan, and K’leef gathered around.
Hands on hips, Thorn smiled. “Well?”
K’leef whispered over his open palms, then picked up a small piece. His fingers smoked, but whatever magic he was using prevented them from getting burnt. “Strange. Gold doesn’t usually retain heat this long, not without melting. And the curves…Is it a vase?”
Thorn grinned. “Guess again.”
Lily leaned over K’leef’s shoulder. “Some bowl? A container of sorts?”
“Yeah.” Thorn clapped. “It’s an eggshell.”
K’leef still didn’t get it. “So?”
“So I saw the phoenixes blowing flames over their nest. Keeping it warm. Our chickens do the same thing by sitting on their eggs—keeping ’em warm till they hatch. So this piece of shell tells me there’s at least one chick up there, and I reckon there’s another at least. Why catch a live phoenix when we can grab an egg instead?”
K’leef’s eyes lit up. “Take that home, wait for it to hatch, and we’ve done it.”
“Exactly. We pop it in a furnace or something until it cracks. Then you’ll have your phoenix and the lava crown. As easy as that.”
Pan interrupted. “Phoenixes only lay every hundred years. You can bet this pair won’t let us just grab one of their precious eggs and ride off.”
“You’re right,” said Thorn, enjoying this. “So we’ll need you to make a distraction while I swoop in with K’leef. Hades can carry the both of us, as long as it ain’t too far.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped K’leef.
Thorn glanced at the boy’s rotund frame. “It means you can either fly or have double-helpings at meals, but not both.”
K’leef patted his belly. “It’s just reserves.”
Pan was standing, looking over at the city. “You want me to play tag with a pair of phoenixes?”
“Yup.”
Lily had her not-amused face on. “They’ll kill him.”
“Probably,” agreed Thorn. “So?”
Lily’s not-amused face became an angry face. “We need a better plan.”
“There ain’t one, and time’s running out. Look at the sun, Lily. Only another few hours till sunset, and we need to be long gone from here by then.”
The shadows were lengthening, quicker than they liked.
“What about me?” Lily asked.
Thorn grimaced. “You stay here.”
“Where it’s safe?” said Lily.
“If you put it like that, then, yeah. Where it’s safe.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And why should I do that?”
“Because you shouldn’t be here in the first place, Lily!” he snapped. “K’leef’s after a crown, your uncle’s after fame and glory, and I’m here…that doesn’t matter. You were supposed to stay back in Nahas.”
“Until Ameera tried to assassinate me. Or don’t you remember?”
K’leef looked ashamed. “I’ll take care of her when we get back.”
Thorn wasn’t finished. “You’re the ruler of a kingdom; assassins are an occupational hazard. You’ve dealt with them before. Hasn’t she, Pan?”
Pan didn’t rise to the bait. “Thorn’s right. You best wait here, Lily.”
Thorn wasn’t proud of himself, but he knew Lily was trapped. What he didn’t want to do was blame it on her magic, or lack of it. Even if she were up to full strength, what good would it do her here? This was Necropolis, thick with magic beyond the abilities of any sorcerer alive. If anything went wrong, her spells wouldn’t make a difference.
Thorn turned to the others. “Come on. We’re running out of time.”
K’leef nodded. “I’ll use my magic to dampen down the heat from the nest. As long as the phoenixes aren’t around, we should be able to grab an egg.”
Pan handed Thorn his quiver. “You’ve got this all planned out, haven’t you?”
“It ain’t the first time I’ve stolen eggs out of a nest.”
Pan picked up Thorn’s bow. “Is there any end to your talents, young Thorn?”
“Give me that.”
Pan held it aloft. “Such a simple weapon—so crude, yet so powerful. A piece of wood, some string…”
The bowstring twanged apart.
“Oops,” said Pan.
“You broke it on purpose!”
Thorn yelled and swung the bow at Pan, but he sidestepped and shoved Thorn off his feet.
Pan put his boot on Thorn’s chest and sword tip to his throat.
“Either of you try something and the boy dies,” Pan stated.
Flames licked K’leef’s angry brow. “What’s the point of all this?” he asked.
He didn’t need to wait more than a few seconds before the point revealed itself.
Thorn cursed, and K’leef stumbled back as the men came out of hiding. They seemed to emerge out of the sand itself, or crawl from between the rocks and broken buildings. Seven nomads of the Scorpion tribe, armed and itching for them to try something stupid. The nomads looked like they had suffered. Some were injured; all had taken a battering.
Jambiya entered the camp, tapping his way over the rubble. “Well done, my friend.”
Thorn glared at Lily. The mightiest “I told you so” waited on the very tip of his tongue.
Lily looked up at her uncle, her own gaze as cold as midwinter ice. “Traitor.” She slapped him.
How could they have let this happen? Thorn should have done something when he had the chance! Now all he could do was lie helpless in the dirt.
Then Hades joined in.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Add a giant bat to any fight and
what you get is chaos. The wings covered over fifty feet, and the small camp was engulfed.
While all eyes were on Hades, Lily acted.
She barged into one of the nomads, grabbing for his sword, a move so unexpected he practically dropped it into her hand.
There was a high-pitched scream and a very unpleasant crunch that sounded a lot like the noise a head might make if it got itself between the jaws of a giant bat. A moment later, Lily ducked as the decapitated corpse of one of the Scorpion tribesmen went flying past.
Messy, but predictable.
Other people might be squeamish around a headless body, but Lily was Gehennish, born and bred. She had learned to sew by practicing on old One-Eyed Ron, the family zombie.
No one paid attention to her, not with Hades trying to snack on Jambiya.
An arch of flame burst up around them. Lily spun away from it and swung the sword wildly side to side, almost toppling over with the weight of it.
What am I doing?
“Hades!” she yelled. “Grab Thorn!”
Thorn tried to run past the two nomads blocking him. “I’m not going without you!”
“Hades! Take Thorn!”
The bat wanted to fight, but he was clumsy on the ground. Now that the shock was over, the nomads had him surrounded. Sooner or later, one of them would get a spear or sword into him, with or without the help of Jambiya’s magical flames. Hades shrieked, snapped, and swiped with his wings, but he wasn’t going to win this.
“Hades!” Lily commanded once more. “Take Thorn!”
The bat buffeted one of the Scorpion tribesmen aside, snatched Thorn’s collar in his teeth, and beat down once, a huge thrust that smothered them with stinging sand.
“No!” Thorn yelled. “Put me down!”
A few seconds later, they were far out of range of the spears, arrows, and fiery blasts.
“Run, Lily!” K’leef shouted. “I’ll hold them back!”
He’d summoned a wall of fire, over ten feet tall and bonfire-intense. The magic soaking the Shardlands was feeding K’leef’s power.
But it was feeding Jambiya’s, too.
Lily hesitated, trapped between loyalty to her friend and the wisdom of his words.
Who was stronger out of the two brothers? She didn’t know.
And who was the more ruthless?
That she did.
As if to prove her point, K’leef started backing off. He didn’t want to hurt his brother, while Jambiya was going for the kill. Any second now, K’leef would hesitate, drop his guard…
She grabbed him. “We are leaving!”
“Lily!” yelled K’leef. As he stumbled backward, he threw out one final blaze. The entire camp combusted. The nomads dove for cover, and even Jambiya, immune to flames through his own magic, gasped as his robes caught fire.
“That’ll keep him busy for a while,” K’leef said, trying to suppress a grin.
They ran, Lily leading the way. The ruins grew denser as they headed toward the city itself. Lily glanced back, fearing pursuit, but she saw no one. They didn’t stop until they’d been running for ten minutes.
Both of them collapsed, panting hard. Lily caught her breath first. “That was amazing. A full fire wall! Remember when you could hardly light a candle?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Lily sprang up onto a boulder as flames poured out of K’leef’s mouth. He vomited fire for a good minute, then finally burped out a cloud of smoke. “Sorry.”
She didn’t get down. “You finished?”
“I’ve burned my boots.” He wiggled his now bare toes.
Lily peeked over the side of a wall. It didn’t look like anyone had spotted K’leef’s little bonfire of sick, but it was probably a good idea to keep moving. “Let’s go.”
“But the stones are sharp, Lily!”
“Stop it. You’re sounding like Gabriel.” She pulled off his turban and tore it in half. “Wrap up your dainty little toes.”
“I can’t believe we escaped,” said K’leef as he set to binding.
“Jambiya captured me once already. No way was I going to allow it a second time.” Lily clambered to the top of a statue to have a look. She couldn’t see Hades or Thorn anywhere. “I’m not one of those helpless princesses.”
K’leef laughed. “No, you certainly aren’t.”
By the Six, she hated those stories! The ones with a simpering princess, an evil witch—usually one of her relatives—and a heroic prince or a handsome peasant who thought, just by killing the monster, he basically got to own the idiot princess. There were never enough zombies in those tales, and if they did appear, they were always villains!
Real life wasn’t like that at all. Take K’leef, who was a prince but didn’t look like he was capable of saving anyone right now. Peasantwise there was Thorn, but he was no one’s idea of handsome.
She made a much more interesting heroine. The witch queen who lived with the undead, conversed with her father’s ghost, and kept her brother in an eternal sleep in a tall tower covered with cobwebs. All true, as it happened.
K’leef’s face clouded as he looked behind them. “You didn’t see Farn, did you?”
With all that had happened, it was only now that she realized the efreet hadn’t been part of the ambush. “It would be too much to hope it had been destroyed, somehow?”
“Only way I know of putting out an efreet is by chaining it to an anchor and sinking it a thousand fathoms deep.”
So was Farn lurking out there somewhere?
Why was nothing easy? Just for once?
“My fires aren’t going to keep Jambiya and Pan at bay for long,” K’leef said. “Nothing’s going to stop them from completing this quest—and trying to kill us.”
“You got a plan for catching a live phoenix?” asked Lily.
He shook his head. “I bet Thorn’s grandpa would have something to say about this predicament.”
“This would have never happened if I’d been allowed to bring Tyburn.”
K’leef scowled. “And you know as well as anyone that bringing your own executioner to a foreign kingdom is illegal.”
“But still.” Lily sighed. “Could you imagine it? Seeing him come strolling over that hill right now?”
They both looked over at the hill. No one came. Strolling or otherwise.
“Oh, well.” Why was she was still holding the nomad’s sword? She dropped it in a crevasse. “I’d settle for Baron Sable. He taught my uncle how to sword-fight.”
“Who was better?”
“If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said the baron, no question. But now?”
“Mary would sort this mess out,” said K’leef. “Send Jambiya to bed without supper.”
They were without any of their allies. The only one within in a thousand miles was a stubborn peasant boy….
Lily gazed over at Necropolis. “What do you think Thorn’s going to do?”
K’leef’s black hair fell to his shoulders in soft ringlets, and Lily almost laughed. He was actually quite beautiful. A funny thing to think of, right here, right now. But maybe you needed to look for the smallest good things even in the worst situations. “I don’t mean this as an insult,” K’leef said, “but Thorn’s not that clever, is he?”
“True. But he has a ridiculous amount of courage. You might even say too much.”
K’leef nodded. “So he’s going to do something brave but foolish. Agreed?”
They both looked off at the distant, fire-lit tower.
“He’s going after the phoenix egg,” said K’leef.
“We need to stop him.”
“How?”
She frowned. “I’m merely listing our problems. Solutions will present themselves. At some point.”
“Better be some point soon. According to the Ruby Warlock, one should never linger in Necropolis after dark.”
“Did he say why?”
“No, because he didn’t linger to find out.”
> “Now that’s as useless as one of Thorn’s grandpa’s sayings.” The tower looked to be miles away. “How much do you want those eggs, K’leef?”
He spat sooty phlegm on the ground. “I wish I’d never gone on this stupid quest.”
“Then let’s forget about it and go home. We’ll find some other way of keeping Jambiya off the throne. But first we have to get Thorn.”
THIRTY-NINE
“Put me down, you smelly lump of fur!”
Hades did not obey. He carried Thorn higher, and farther, from his friends.
“We can’t leave them, Hades!”
Thorn wriggled in the bat’s grip, not caring that he was hundreds of feet above ground. He couldn’t just abandon them! “Let go, Hades!”
Hades squeezed his claws another inch deeper into Thorn’s shoulders.
“Ow! That hurts!”
But he stopped wriggling, and Hades took the pressure off.
And they flew.
“Let me up,” he said. “I’m tired of hanging here like one of your sheep.”
Hades opened one claw, and Thorn swung over to the bat’s side. Balancing on the bat’s curled leg, he hoisted himself swiftly up onto Hades’s back, right between his shoulder blades.
“I should have sold you to the circus when I had the chance.”
Hades snorted in reply. He knew Thorn too well to take his threats seriously. Thorn knew him, too. He couldn’t imagine life without the smelly old bat.
Thorn shuffled forward and rested his elbows just above Hades’s neck. “I guess we can’t head back. Jambiya will have his archers on the lookout for us.”
So what could he do? There was no way he would abandon Lily and K’leef, and no way he could beat Jambiya. But at least he still had Hades, his bow, and, oh, a handful of arrows. He pulled the spare bowstring from his boot and restrung his weapon.
Hades began to circle.
“You tired?” Thorn should have realized sooner. Hades hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days, and Thorn had been pushing him too hard. They settled down in the ruins.
A mournful wind swept across the ancient flagstones, and the black iron statues groaned on their high plinths. They were pitted with rust yet proud. He’d seen statues like this back in Castle Gloom, in the Shadow Library. Huge, otherworldly, and inhuman. He must appear like a mouse in comparison, and that grated on him. People shouldn’t be made to feel so…small.